#oh my god why was the suggested tag healy x reader slkjfddsf

[with-the-flickers-of-light]

Ok, so.

[deep breath]

Since this is a Taylor Swift fan blog (even if it's one with zero (0) followers), it feels important to address my thoughts on the Matty Healy situationship.

Warning, this is going to be a post critical of the relationship. I absolutely do not believe that being a fan means that I have to support all of Swift's decisions. Also, content warning for swearing, light discussion of exploitative/abusive pornography, anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, and just general shittiness.

If you want anything tagged or fact-checked, please let me know!

Before diving in, my general thoughts on celebrity relationships:

As a general rule, I don't believe in speculating about celebrities' relationships. I am only really looking into Healy now since the publicization of the Swift/Healy relationship seems to be quite intentional at this point. And while I don't believe in holding women to a higher standard than men, or in erasing their professional achievements to gossip about their personal lives, I also believe that we as consumers get to choose who we support. Professionals are entitled to privacy, yes, but "privacy" is not a free pass to ignore moral wrongs.

For me, my basic stance is that I understand "The Man", but that many of the behaviors discussed therein should not be appropriate for anyone, whether a man or not. So no, this isn't about me being a misogynist and overriding Swift's professional achievements with gossip about her love life. This is about me pointing out that no one is free from accountability -- whether or not the media holds you accountable, somebody will.

I do believe the rich and famous have at least some responsibility to do good in the world. You have privilege, you have a platform. Hell, the world could refuse to ever give you another cent and you'd probably remain better-off for the rest of your life than most people. And especially if you choose to cultivate parasocial relationships with your fans, you have to realize that making shitty choices will feel like personal betrayals to them. As a celebrity, you know that your public decisions will be held under scrutiny and that they will impact the general population, because you hold influence.

And finally, on the nature of romantic relationships: I identify as aromantic-asexual, so I will be the first to admit that I do not understand all the urges that go into dubiously intelligent relationships. Nonetheless, I hold that while attraction may be involuntary, a relationship is a choice. (There are, of course, cases of abuse where the "relationship" is really not a choice on one side, but based on all we've seen I do not think Swift/Healy is one of them.)

That said, we arrive at the issue of Healy.

Healy is not the kind of person I am interested in supporting, financially or otherwise. I'm not going to list off all his crap -- it's well-known enough to be on Wikipedia at this point. (Which I hear is in a bit of an editing war? Never a good sign, y'all.) This post is about my response, because you can find the facts elsewhere (and you've probably already read them elsewhere).

If he was middle-of-the-road questionable -- like, if all he did was eat raw meat -- it could be excused. Whatever, I'm not going to ever be a fan of that, but I'm also not going to give a damn aside from doing a double-take at the headline and then sighing.

The licking fingers and kissing fans thing... that's. A, uh. It's a choice. That's the point where I'm kind of like... what? But sure, I guess you could argue that it's a morally gray area, because it's weird, and dubiously consensual, but I dunno, fans could be into that or something? Definitely not something I'm into, but pending further investigation on the case, I could bring myself to just roll my eyes at another trashbag.

And then we get into his recent, shitty statements. "It was just a joke/ironic/satire" is a bullshit excuse and in the year 2023, we all know it. If you're a celebrity who has a PR team, I sure as hell know that you know it. I am willing to forgive misguided jokes if they were from a bygone era and the offender has since apologized for the harm they caused.

Hell, maybe I could bring myself to accept the "ironic Nazi salute"; sure, maybe he was trying to bring awareness to Trump/Kanye-gate by drawing that parallel. I could convince myself that he really was acting in good faith, because there is a maybe possibly potentially decent outcome he could've been angling at.

To be clear, I don't believe it. I think we all know to not do the Nazi salute, even in satire.

But even if I did, well.

I am not willing to forgive Healy "joking" about masturbating to exploitative pornography of black women in the year 2023, without even an apology (to the best of my knowledge). I'm not going to speculate on whether or not he really was joking, but whether it was a fact or a joke, it's fucking disgusting. Whether it's a stage personality, a joke, an ironic comment, or satire, if it's you causing harm, then it's shitty. At best, it's ignorant and reckless; at worst, it's... I don't even know what to say. And again, in the year 2023, it's not hard to tell what could be harmful in said "joke" about porn, so I don't put much stock in the "ignorant" column.

There is no possible good outcome from a "joke" like that, which means there is no possible positive spin for me to try to play. There is no reason to be that shitty.

The evidence is clear and simple, and it leads to the conclusion that supporting Healy is not something I can be at all interested in or tolerant of.

What about the good things he's said?

Well, let's keep this short and sweet: human decency is not a transaction. Good actions don't cancel out bad actions, except for when the good action is a fucking good apology that genuinely seeks to make reparations for the bad action.

Okay, but why should Swift take responsibility for that?

Straight up, whether or not Swift is a "feminist" is irrelevant to this conversation -- this is the standard I apply to people regardless of what beliefs they claim (although it would come with an extra helping of hypocrisy if you do want to claim to support women and POC). What's relevant is that she has chosen to publicly and positively associate herself with a known piece of shit. And being in a relationship with Healy is tacitly supporting his views. There is no way she -- a self-proclaimed "mastermind", a "calculated/smart businesswoman" -- doesn't know this.

There is no professional benefit to associating with Healy, either. The David O'Russell movie could be hand-waved with "it was a professional opportunity". Where the Crawdads Sing could be reasoned away as "separating art from artist". But her dating life is 100% a personal choice. The only benefit to dating Healy is dating Healy. There's no other opportunity here, just the chance to spend time with and tacitly support a dirtbag.

(I know that she knows that "they're nice to me" does not magically make a shitty man a good person. You know how I know that? Because that's what she said during Scooter-gate. So there are no excuses here.)

She is a grown woman fully capable of cognitively processing the consequences of publicly supporting Healy. I don't care what she says in "Don't Blame Me", I am blaming her, because it's her own damn choice. She is making the choice, consciously and with no other benefits, to publicly take the side of someone known for racist and sexist behaviors.

And that's something that we can absolutely hold her accountable for.

Because at this point, supporting Swift is also tacitly affirming Healy's problematic behavior.

So how does this situation resolve?

There are 3 parties in this situation: Swift, Healy, and the fanbase. At least one of us has to step up and do better.

Swift could wake up, realize just how bad this is, and do better.

Healy could have an epiphany where he realizes just how bad his actions have been, and make a concerted effort to do better and make reparations.

We as a fanbase could walk away, because we are unwilling to tolerate the bullshit.

At this point, it seems kind of unlikely that wither Swift or Healy are going to change for the better. That leaves it up to us.

And now for the tricky part: deciding what to do as a fan.

Blech. It's easy enough to come to the conclusion that Swift's recent behavior has been unpalatable. It's harder to figure out what to do about that.

As fans, I know that there are a lot of emotions involved. There's the parasocial relationship that you want to hang onto; there's the importance her music may have played for you personally; there's basic appreciation for the technical construction of her work. And I know there's definitely the undying hope that maybe this is all a misunderstanding and maybe she really is better than this.

Either way, to me, there are 3 steps to getting clean from supporting problematic artists:

Stop public support. There's a time for silence, and there's a time to fucking speak now. Stop wearing merchandise, or repurpose it. Don't keep running a stan account as if nothing has happened.

Stop active financial support. Don't put money into her. Don't buy albums, merchandise, or concert tickets.

Stop passive financial support. That's streaming on Spotify, things where you might not be paying, but she's still getting money.

And then the final step is severing emotional connections. Stop singing her music for fun; stop listening to already-purchased music. I don't include this in the 3-step process because in my opinion, it's not a prerequisite to cut out a problematic artist's art to stop supporting the problematic artist (unless that art is reflective of their shittiness). What you choose to do in private without any interaction with the artist is your own business. It impacts no one but you if you continue listening to your existing downloads of Swift's music.

With all that in mind, for now, I'm not deactivating this blog. I'm going to let my queue finish itself off. And then I'm probably going to write a few reflections on some of her more questionable lyrics, because I do think there are some... interesting things in there that deserve to be discussed.

When all's said and done, though, this blog is probably going to go into indefinite hiatus, because I'm not interested in running a hate-blog, nor am I willing to continue running a fan-blog.

So. Yeah. That's where I'm at.